I hope that poor woman made her flight.

She probably won't be let back in, though

Idiotic to try to prevent people from flying

@3
Only the Fed can do that!

You should have seen it. "But what about meeeeeeeeeeee! I'm going to miss MY flight. MY flight is IMPORTANT? Can't you understand? My. Flight. Mine! MINE!"

So yeah. All of a sudden they had to give a shit.

That flag there? They assembled to block the gate and people filled in the whole space sitting down behind that flag, to block that gate while others went to block all the other gates. So the police shuffled in with that gray partition to block it themselves, preventing the signs from being seen from the other side, and perhaps, they hoped, to make the demonstrators give up and go away. "See you're not blocking anything! It's already blocked. You can go!"

It didn't work because the demonstrators were not golden retrievers chasing a tennis ball. That kind of misdirection totally works with your dog, or a four year old, but with grown up adults not so much. They were all suitably amused though. Good times.

As far as I know, they're still there.

Blocking random people from their flights is not going to win any hearts, so you'd better be able to achieve your goals through sheer threat of disruption. Which isn't likely. If the organizers wanted that they shouldn't have picked the airport's deadest time of the week.

I hope this particular tactic wasn't widespread, or that's going to dominate the news coverage.

@6
Sage advice from an armchair protester.

Yes, and?

This is not a fringe movement, this is a mass movement. Don't use the fringe tactics. We don't need to win Trump supporters but we do need to keep a popular base. If we become marginal enough that people look the other way, we'll get wartime-style bending of the legal regime.

Well, what's your goal? I want to blockade as much as possible and kill on the midterms. If you're looking for a popular coup before school lets out, no doubt your tactics will differ too.

Normally I would agree that blocking people from their flights is a jerk move. In this case, the authorities chose this fight, time and place--and were woefully unprepared for the response they practically invited. Any delays are on them.